Daufuskie grapples with waste

Sunday

A mattress. A TV. The entrails of an air-conditioner stripped of copper.

Those are a few of objects left rusting and unraveling in the wilderness on Daufuskie Island.

Some were household goods that apparently wore out. Others, such as a school bus, were more mysterious. Children on Daufuskie ride a ferry to school on the mainland, which is about a mile away.

So who was riding the Beaufort County school bus on an island that's largely traversed by golf cart?

"I honestly do not know when it was in use," said Paul Vogel, who is a member of the Daufuskie Island Conservancy. "What I assume is someone brought the bus over here and didn't want to pay to barge it back, so they dumped it on the land."

The island sits between Hilton Head and Tybee islands. There is no bridge. Tourists, supplies, students, residents and solid waste travel by ferry, barge and private boats. A provisions barge can take 45 minutes to get there because of a no-wake zone and other conditions.

Vogel and nearly two dozen volunteers filled two dumpsters in two days by using GPS technology and the Beaufort County website to identify landowners whose property was used for dumping, often without their knowledge.

Last year, a 6,000-gallon tanker was found abandoned on a parcel of land.

"An unsuspecting person bought it and then found out he had a tanker on his land," said Vogel. Islanders hope an effort to simplify the eight-square-mile island's trash disposal will not only save money but prevent people from dumping, burying, and burning their junk when they don't want to pay to ship it to the mainland.

The current system seems to invite dumping.

Island waste pickup and transfer is fractured across communities with various solid waste facilities located on the island. For years island advocates have mulled the idea of a consolidated waste facility where commercial and residential waste is collected together.

In 2010 the Conservancy won a grant from the Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, which allowed it to work with Joyce Engineering to conduct a waste study. The 2011 study found that the island created 510 tons of waste in a year but projected it would increase to 770 in about five years.

The tonnage dropped last year, however, to just less than 500. The decrease may have been caused by changes in tourist numbers, recycling by Haig Point, economic factors, or more waste ending up somewhere other than the Beaufort County landfill.

Beaufort County is responsible for waste removal for the 150 residents in the historic district, of which an estimated half are believed to be Gullah. The garbage of about 400 residents of private communities, such as Haig Point, is handled by a private contractor. Private communities' waste is considered "commercial."

An estimated 50,000-200,000 tourists visit annually.

The study proposes a "public-private partnership" on waste removal, which was projected to save Beaufort County money.

"Every ounce of trash taken off this island is hauled off on a boat or a barge," said Aaron Crosby former chairman of the Daufuskie Island Council. "If you can reduce the number of hauls and reduce the number of boat trips associated with it, you've automatically saved money and made it more cost effective."

Reconfiguring Daufuskie's waste disposal would require winning over county officials.

"There are certainly some hurdles, one of the hurdles being for the general public waste, that Beaufort County is obligated to provide service for," said Crosby. "They have a way they're accustomed to doing waste removal, and this approach is different. There's going to have to be some convincing."

Both Crosby and Karen Opderbeck with the Conservancy said a unified garbage system could put an end to a wasteful tendency: half-filled dumpsters being barged to the mainland.

Another piece of the trash equation is recycling and repurposing. Conservancy members hope a recycling pilot program in place at Haig Point could become island-wide.

But the Joyce study also raised the idea of turning glass into usable materials as a way of keeping it from adding to the load that's barged to the mainland. Crushed glass could be substituted for a fifth of the ingredients used in paving material.

The study detailed another approach to reducing solid waste from glass: Secure a glass pulverizer and make parking lots, driveways and private roads from it, along with golf course sand traps, pipe bedding of septic systems.

"It would mean saving the expense of purchasing 20 percent of the components of concrete and using the glass people would be generating just by buying, beer wine and pickle jars," said Opderbeck.

But looking more broadly, she said the natural environment and tourism climate stand to benefit.

"To me the biggest thing would be that everyone on this island would have recycling not just Haig Point," Opderbeck said. "That would also be a wonderful PR boon for Daufuskie, and there is eco-tourism that could come from that."

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.